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 Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:32 pm
Rep nodded slightly, not enough to deter Jordan from what he was doing, savouring the attention more than he would admit after so many days running desperately from helplessness. He found himself gaining his balance a little more and looking Jordan over distantly sidelong. He remembered how the sweeping scar cutting across the other man's torso felt and found himself dwelling on that for a moment in his drunken haze.
"A break ish...is. What I need. I really ******** need to stop the ride and get off for a bit. But I can't. So I'm just drinking because...cause it's easier."
He closed his eyes. "Some things are easier. No touching you is harder."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:37 pm
"I know," Jordan said tiredly, and the sigh was audible this time. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and shook his head slightly.
Only a few minutes, but too long. "Your hair's clean. Come on, I'll get you a towel." He moved to turn the water off, then turned back towards the locker area.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:55 pm
If Jordan had lingered even a moment longer Rep had intended to reach out and touch him, to see if he could still feel that steady heartbeat under his hands, to at least remind himself how that scar felt, it didn't seem like a big problem here and now, it seemed so easy. But the water was off and tossing his hair back out of his face, Rep did take hold of Jordan, shifting his balance from the wall to the other man's arm to steady himself on the slippery floor. If he got away with it he hooked his elbow with Jordan's and held on with the other hand.
"I'll come with ye." he said still with an edge of drunkenness, leaning his cheek against Jordan's shoulder. "Didnae want to spook ye, was just... thinking aloud."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:03 pm
"Yeah, it's all right." Jordan helped Rep back over to the bench and got two of the rough and rather inadequate towels out of the closet. He flopped one over Rep's shoulder and half-turned away to dry off and pull his own clothes back on, silently grateful that nobody had interrupted that little scene and caught between a tired anger at himself for having gotten himself into this - this in general, this in specific - and a guilty lingering satisfaction in touch, however brief. Rep had made his bad decisions aided by alcohol, but Jordan's were all his own responsibility tonight.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:26 pm
Rep sat down on the bench and roughly scrubbed at his hair with the towel, leaving it an absolute fuzzy mess but at least a clean and marginally dryer one. This attained he set about drying off the rest of himself with the same briskness. He didn't take his eyes from Jordan, watching the other man with that unwavering and slightly predatory attention which sometimes came over him when he was derailed the whole time. His expression despite this attentiveness was still gentle.
"M'grateful." he said, burying his face in the towel with a sigh, his voice a murmur. "Ace and you are like...just...just the only people who care if I live or die. 'nd all I did wass like...." he fell silent for a moment or two before he added. "I'm sry I hurt you so much."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 1:35 pm
Jordan pulled his shirt back on and sat down, holding his socks and looking sideways at Rep, meeting his gaze steady and clear for long moments. "I've forgiven you," he answered finally, and bent to pull his socks and boots on. "You are who you are." His voice was even, quiet, edged with resignation and maybe a little wistfulness.
He picked up Rep's jeans from where they'd slid onto the floor and handed them back. "Can you manage your trousers? Don't think you need to scandalize the general population any more than you already have."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:05 pm
Rep returned the look with a sad one of his own, his expression unreadable and his emotions a chaotic swirl that was too much for his fuzzy drunken mind to address. He didn't think he'd ever forgiven anyone in his life and the thought of how difficult it had to have been rattled him.
He took the denims and eyed them distantly, not really seeing them as his thoughts were elsewhere. He looked back to Jordan, setting them on his lap. When he spoke it was oddly soft and almost childish, snuck out through the impermeable fortress of his pride.
"C'n I get a cuddle? Then I'll put them on."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:24 pm
It wasn't safe to want too much, and it hadn't ever been. If you wanted something enough, it dug its claws in deep and pulled you back and back and back, a force larger than yourself, tidal and immense. But Jordan had given up trying not to want things; detachment had as much power to break him as attachment, and maybe more. He breathed out and put his arm around Rep's shoulders, a gentle half-hug carefully judged to be no more than friendly. He couldn't afford anything more than that.
"Go on," he said after a moment, and made himself smile. "You're gonna get cold."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:33 pm
Rep didn't do anything in half measures and with alcohol coursing in his system had none of the usual limiters on being self-serving. He wanted a hug and Jordan had complied, so he closed the distance himself, standing and letting the towel and denims fall to the floor to give the other man a proper hug of the sort only full hunters were probably capable of. The black dagger between them was - as always - ice cold, but otherwise Rep's skin was warm, even separated from Jordan by fabric.
"M'arctic trained this.. this is nothing." he protested, murmuring against the crook of Jordan's neck. "But okaaaaay." he resigned himself with a whine. "I'll get dressed." And reluctantly he released the other man and retrieved and donned his underwear and denims.
"Maybe I should like..change these." he said, giving his lower half a concerned look. "Maybe they'll do ok."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:42 pm
Jordan was both startled and entirely unsurprised to be enfolded in a close, tight hug. He let himself return it, but not for long, and let go without protest or visible regret. "You should probably change," he agreed, "but after you get some rest." He offered his arm for support again. "You got spare clothes at the bar, or am I gonna have to bring you something?"
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 2:50 pm
"Only clothes I h've at the bar is my like. Skinnin apron. I don't know if I'd get away with wearing only that." He took the offered arm without hesitation, a fraction steadier on his feet. "Maybe you could bring me somethin' snazzy. I could be fashionable and drunk, a step up fae drunk."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:00 pm
"Probably not, no." Rep seemed less wobbly, so they could probably move at less of a snail's pace, Jordan decided; he guided Rep out and toward the main doors, out into the slowly cooling darkness outside. "Seems hazardous. People might mistake you for someone with a sense of style," he teased. "I'll drop off something clean you can wear before I go to bed myself. But first things first. Watch your step," he warned as the path sloped down toward the town.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:19 pm
"That's the kind of c**t I could be." he said with a grin. "Could be aw trendy n' s**t. Fashinista. No like Blue me though, no gay fashion, I mean no flouncy you know? Cool fashion." There were a few stumbles but mercifully less than there might have been without the help of night vision.
"M'safe." he protested after the second such precarious toe-stubbing. "The safest."
His spirits at least for the moment seemed to be back on up again as he looked over the darkened forests that clustered the island in a distracted kind of way.
"F'rests are like, really nice." he said. "Like some of them are all split up like they don't like each other and some are all clustered up like they are fightin' for light, pushing and shoving one another. Bits like that are ********' creepy. Even animals don't like that." He was thoughtful for a moment before rambling on. "My favourite ones are like, the ones that grow on the sides of cliffs, all holding on with their roots and s**t, like, they shouldn't be there, its not a place for trees. But they are anyway and no one like, no one could ever tell them that they shouldn't be."
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Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 4:45 pm
"Of course not. Only the coolest," Jordan agreed gravely. He made no comment on the stumbles, simply making sure that Rep didn't fall. There was enough light that he could make his way down the familiar path without tripping over something. It would be convenient to have night vision, he thought, but he'd have to make do with ambient light. "Trees are stubborn." He went along with the subject change, smiling a little. "Grow anywhere they put their roots down. The ones that grow on cliffs get all twisty and scrubby, but they get tough too."
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